Tsilhqot'in First Nation granted BC title claim by SCoC

[JLives]

If anyone is offended by the term whitey please give your head a shake. It is not the Caucasian's equivalent term to the n-word or other racial slurs. It's just silly.

[zzontar]

If anyone is offended by the term whitey please give your head a shake. It is not the Caucasian's equivalent term to the n-word or other racial slurs. It's just silly.

Funny how that works... darkey is considered more racist than whitey... redskin is considered more racist than pale-face... slant-eye is considered more racist than round-eye... what's silly is that slang terms for whites are rarely deemed racist even if they are basically identical to the terms whites use which are deemed racist.

[JLives]

Because they weren't invented with racist connotations. It was just so there was a "slur" for white people and it doesn't really mean anything. There are not generations of oppression behind the terms whitey or cracker.

[zzontar]

Because they weren't invented with racist connotations. It was just so there was a "slur" for white people and it doesn't really mean anything. There are not generations of oppression behind the terms whitey or cracker.

Come on Jenny... non-whites never use slang terms for whites with racist connotations? I never new whites were so popular.

[coffeeFreak]

Sec. 35 rights prove valuable for First Nations

BY DOUG CUTHAND, THE STARPHOENIX JULY 4, 2014

Back in 1982, when the First Nations lobbied the federal and provincial governments to include the treaties and aboriginal rights in the Constitution, Section 35 was inserted as a last-minute compromise.

We were concerned at the time that all Sec. 35 gave us was the right to go to court. The statement was suitably vague, and merely stated: "Existing treaty and aboriginal rights are hereby recognized and affirmed."

The substance had to be added later. First Nations so far have assembled an impressive list of winning court cases. According to Bill Gallagher, who wrote the book Resource Rulers, we are closing in on 200 victories.

The Tsilhqot'in decision by the Supreme Court is the latest in this impressive winning streak. It's been described as a game changer, a historic decision, and another step in the empowerment of First Nations. Clearly, it is time for the federal and provincial governments to negotiate resource agreements with First Nations while they still can.

The high court decision recognizes the inherent right of the Tsilhqot'in people to hold title to a 1,700-square-kilometre area in north-central British Columbia. By extension, all other B.C. First Nations can now claim their traditional territory as titled land. Since their land was never surrendered to the Crown, they still hold title to it.

The treaty negotiation process is now in disarray, and First Nations have been dealt a strong hand. It should be pointed out that the court didn't give or grant anything to the First Nations. It recognized what the Tsilhqot'in nation and other B.C. First Nations already held. You can't give people what they already own.

The landscape has shifted again. The Delgamuukw decision in 1991 recognized aboriginal title to unceded land in B.C., but was vague on the particulars. The Tsilhqot'in decision strengthens the issue of aboriginal title and places it in greater context. The Supreme Court ruled that aboriginal title exists, it is effective, and it is enforceable by First Nations peoples. There is no lack of clarity here.

The court also ruled that First Nations must be consulted before resource projects can proceed on their traditional land. Aboriginal title means that: ¦¦Titleholders have the right to the benefits associated with the land, including to use it, enjoy it and profit from its economic development. This means resource revenue sharing, taxation and other benefits will accrue to the First Nations should they enter into development agreements.

Titleholders have the right to control the land, which means that governments and corporations must obtain consent from the titleholders. ¦¦This decision applies to all B.C. First Nations who never surrendered their land, as well those in Quebec and the Maritimes who did not surrender land but entered into peace and friendship treaties and military alliances.

This decision opens the door for some serious negotiations with resource companies. In the past, we were offered jobs and contracts, which are the modern day equivalent of beads and trinkets. Now we're talking about resource revenue sharing and ownership. Our people can also stop a risky project where the threat to the environment and our way of life are threatened.

It also means that our leaders will have the right to negotiate serious deals should they agree to proceed with a resource project. Corporations and governments will have to look seriously at the First Nations who hold title to the land.

Meanwhile, treaty negotiations are in a holding pattern. This is the governments' fault. They ignored aboriginal title for years, and instead tried to negotiate termination agreements. Their days of taking a heavy-handed approach of take or leave it are done.

To call it negotiations is wrong. In reality it was a farce. Now they have to negotiate in good faith. They have to get rid of the bureaucrats and bring in negotiators interested in a settlement, and not a career.

The best example of this is right here in Saskatchewan, where for more than 20 years the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations negotiated with the Department of Indian Affairs to no avail. After Cliff Wright was appointed as the treaty commissioner,

he spearheaded the negotiations and Indian Affairs played a minor role. The result was serious negotiations and success. It's not impossible. It's a matter of having the political will.

The federal response to the Tsilhqot'in decision has been stunned and muted. Both Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt and Finance Minister Joe Oliver stuck to their talking points, saying they will study the decision. Oliver even bravely stated that the Northern Gateway pipeline isn't dead.

But the Supreme Court has rendered its decision and governments cannot ignore it.

First Nations people should thank their former leaders who worked tirelessly to have our treaty and aboriginal rights written into the Constitution. Without Sec. 35 we wouldn't have the impressive track record in the courts, and our future would be much different.


© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/rights+prove+valuable+First+Nations/9999809/story.html

[coffeeFreak]

The Supreme Court’s B.C. land-title decision? It’s more important than you think
BOB RAE
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jul. 04 2014, 8:36 AM EDT

Some of the reactions to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Tsilhqot'in First Nation case, which requires pipeline projects and similar developments to seek aboriginal approval, are so over the top they cannot go without comment.

Nearly forty years ago a case from the Nisga'a community known as Calder made a similar long journey through the courts, and it was there that the Supreme Court (long before the Charter) held that the arguments from both Ottawa and British Columbia that no aboriginal title or claims survived the arrival of European settlement was wrong.

The invasion and occupation of the Americas had been seen by imperial powers as a conquest of empty land, whose borders and boundaries were decided by any number of treaties and agreements signed in Europe. In the sixteenth century there was even a theological argument in the Valladolid debate about whether aboriginals were human. The doctrine of "terra nullius" was often invoked to assert the legal fiction that these lands belonged to "no one" before they were "discovered" by white people from Europe.

The Calder decision rightly blew those doctrines out of the water, and urged governments, First Nations, and other aboriginal peoples to sort out their relationships on the basis of equality and respect. Since that time, in a variety of ways, governments have made an effort to do this, but it has been slow, halting, begrudging, and only rarely successful.

From time to time the Court has had to weigh in, at each juncture being careful, some might say judicious, to point out that there is something called "the honour of the Crown," that governments owe a fiduciary duty to aboriginal peoples, and that they have a responsibility to consult and accommodate.

Centuries before Calder, governments often signed treaties, with a variety of motives. The French and English signed "peace and friendship" treaties as a way of ensuring military loyalty. The so-called numbered treaties were more or less imposed between 1875 and 1925 to ensure the land was cleared. Two recent books, James Daschuk's Clearing the Plains and John Long's Treaty 9, raise important issues about the moral and legal foundation of these agreements, and their implications for the modern world.

More recently, some groundbreaking modern treaties have been negotiated and signed - in Quebec, Labrador, Nunavut, Northwest Territories and British Columbia - in which more equal and positive relationships have been established with shared powers, revenue distribution, and massive land claims that have recognised aboriginal jurisdiction over large portions of their traditional lands. They have altered the political and economic landscape to better recognise the fact that First Nation and aboriginal governments are real, and have a jurisdiction that needs recognition in fact and in law.

This is the context in which the Tsilhqot'in decision must be understood. Forty years ago the Court said aboriginal title existed. In this case, after an exhaustive trial, the Court said it exists in a defined piece of land.

But the Court hardly gave the store away. They pointed out that the land has been under the effective control of the Tsihlqot'in all along. Their title is of a collective nature, and exists for perpetuity. Other governments have a stake too, and can override title, but only in a clearly defined and limited way and for purposes that have been given greater clarity by the Court. And in an important statement the Court said, in paragraph 97 of the decision, that government and businesses worried about an assertion of aboriginal title would be well advised to seek the consent of the First Nations and aboriginal governments before proceeding with development plans.

Just a few years ago, the Harper government dropped its longstanding opposition to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and agreed to sign. That document calls for "free, prior and informed consent" before developments can proceed.

The policy path is clear. Aboriginal people and their political entities have a valuable part to play in the federation as governments alongside provincial and federal governments. This was agreed to by first ministers in the 1992 Charlottetown Accord. Peoples that have been systematically abused, ignored, and sidelined by development, now have a right to jurisdiction over their lands based on history and facts on the ground. These governments should have the right to decide how they will be used and to share in the benefits that flow from that, as well as the right to be consulted, involved, accommodated, and indeed compensated if they are to be expected to agree to development. Some projects won't happen, but most will, and the result will be to begin the end of an aboriginal poverty that is a stain on our nationhood.

This process is in fact a win for all Canadians, because it allows us to finally embrace our broader identity, not as conquerors or oppressors, but as a people struggling to become whole. It's the nation building that remains to be done.

And of course arguments will continue, because things have been done in the name of development that have been truly destructive. The flooding of vast swathes of land without recognition of both the environmental degradation and the economic costs, mines that have never been properly cleaned up, the pollution of rivers and lakes that has destroyed the fishery and human health and never been paid for: the list goes on, and there are still days of reckoning ahead. Will this cost the provincial and federal treasuries? Yes, indeed, but these are bills that must be paid.

Those who complain that the courts are not good places to resolve these issues should look in the mirror and ask themselves what they have really done to allow them their speedy and just resolution in another way. Governments have hemmed and hawed, opposed and delayed, and only come to the table when all other opportunities were exhausted. They are running out of excuses. Which is a good thing.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-supreme-courts-bc-pipeline-decision-its-more-important-than-you-think/article19459783/

[bob vernon]

For decades the BC government would have no part of even meeting the native leaders. Always told the public they were open to negotiations, but the reality was that nothing really took place. Sure, they gave the lava beds to the Nis'gaa, but if there was a hint of mineral wealth on the land, the big stall took place.

Now this month with the Supreme Court ruling, Christy is setting up all kinds of meetings this fall with native leaders who she was snubbing last year.

[maryjane48]

For decades the BC government would have no part of even meeting the native leaders. Always told the public they were open to negotiations, but the reality was that nothing really took place. Sure, they gave the lava beds to the Nis'gaa, but if there was a hint of mineral wealth on the land, the big stall took place.

Now this month with the Supreme Court ruling, Christy is setting up all kinds of meetings this fall with native leaders who she was snubbing last year.

lol poor lil christy has to deal with the big bad natives now lol should make good entertainment watching her trying to treat natives like teachers, the only diff is natives have a scoc decision to back them

[wanderingman]

*removed*

[steven lloyd]

*removed*

[Glacier]

This really makes me angry. This is a good, hard working guy, and his clients are drying up and he can't sell his place for a fair value. I have many friends in the area who face the same fate. No one will pay half what your place is worth if there is no legal certainty to what you're getting.

A lodge owner operating within the Tsilhqot’in declared title area wants to be compensated so he can leave.

Hausi Wittwer has owned and operated the Chilko River Lodge for 21 years and said because of the uncertainty and his frustration he does not want to live there anymore.

“I want to be bought out with a fair price,” Wittwer said.


His business has decreased in the last three years.

Customers coming to his lodge are not high-end and if it wasn’t for repeat customers from B.C. and Switzerland he would not have survived.

https://www.wltribune.com/news/lodge-ow ... air-price/

[nepal]

[quote="coffeeFreak"][quote]

Thank you for providing the overview perspective of the First Nation dilemma that is being gradually sorted-out. Hopefully such negotiations will continue to lay the groundwork for certainty for all concerned, including for mutually beneficial, and environmentally acceptable projects that need approval certainty to be financially feasible.
It’s likely that the people behind projects are happy to negotiate with whoever has title to the land, so long as once they get negotiated approvals, that they don’t get sideswiped by yet another pop-up claim.

[nepal]

In a positive and progressive light, Apparently in BC, First Nations are establishing a survey-based Land Title system, and property taxation system, similar to that already in place in much of B.C, and that in many cases FN are adopting similar mechanisms already in use in BC. This would provide FN individuals, businesses, Bands and FN territories a registered title control over their specific surveyed parcels of land, for example house parcels on Band land or specific claimed Crown Land. This would give FN individuals or territories the right to sell, buy, lease, or grant right-of-ways on individual parcels of land (like the current setup on non-FN land).

This would also facilitate self-taxation, where a Band would provide community services, (similar to a house on a lot in say Vernon). FN self-government collect taxes over those lands, to provide Native-provided services, such schools, healthcare, roads, fire & police protection. In some cases, like in West Bank FN, they may wish to collect the school tax in their area, but if the students go to a non-Native school, that the Band turn-over that portion of the school tax to the Provincial school system (and visa-versa), and the same with other services. Another example, would be the City of Penticton providing sanitary sewer treatment system hook-up, where the Band might collect the sewer tax from FN individual properties, but that tax gets reimbursed to Penticton to provide that service. It’s also possible that a Band may have a service that an adjacent municipality would like, and pay the FN provider for.

Having such a FN registered land title system could provide certainty for projects such as pipelines, as the pipeline company would negotiate with the individual named on title, and there would be a clear path for where the title access permission and compensation would flow. The same would apply to say a shopping centre located on land leased on FN land.

The Penticton Band is one of several examples of progressive Band communities, that already provide FN school, fire and police protection services. FN taxation facilitates self-funding of these services. Pipeline and power transmission-lines taxation across titled land could also help support FN community services, as it currently done where they cross non-FN municipalities and territories. It’s likely that FN prefer to be self-sufficient and self-administered, as would the Federal Gov likely also prefer, and it seems that is in progress. Part of that is for FN to decide who amongst them goes onto each title, be it individuals or territories. Part of pipeline land access, would be to connect-up all the title-holder permissions and compensation agreements along the route, along FN title and non-FN title land. Access and compensation certainty, would help determine financial feasibility certainty, for any project, as well as revenue certainty for both the title holders and overall FN taxation revenues.

[Glacier]

This is all great, and think First Nations should have more say over their land. But it gets a bit sticky and uncertain when you have non-native owners who cannot vote in band elections, yet pay taxes. I suppose that knowing that going on is one thing, but having the overlords change from the regional district to the Indian band 20 years after you buy is a tough situation.

[Staredintoabyss]

This is all great, and think First Nations should have more say over their land. But it gets a bit sticky and uncertain when you have non-native owners who cannot vote in band elections, yet pay taxes. I suppose that knowing that going on is one thing, but having the overlords change from the regional district to the Indian band 20 years after you buy is a tough situation.

Taxation without representation..... That is a problem in a democracy...but given the way things are changing, what kind of democracy do we actually have then?
If our federal government is largely representative of central Canada do they have a right to make decisions for western Canadians? They have after all a very limited mandate here. Do they have that right?

Have to wonder if the theoretical Cascadia of the past night not have resolved these questions long ago without the interference of Ontario and Quebec.

Uncertainty is Canada's reputation now and one that may hurt us greatly in investment terms. Why would anyone invest in something unstable with debatable benefits ? It is a poor gamble...perhaps.